The present invention relates generally to telecom and more particularly to the ability to provide a multi-subscription application managed by a security component such as a UICC (Universal Integrated Circuit Card) directly.
The problem addressed by the present invention is how to securely switch between different profiles and network access technology from a mobile device, with no limit to the number of profiles being supported.
A scenario in which it is useful to have multiple subscriptions is when one is travelling between geographic areas served by different operators. This is usually referred to as roaming. When roaming into a visited network, a user pays roaming charges which generally are much more expensive than those charged by either the home network or the visited network operators. To get around that problem, users who frequently engage in such travel may try the solution of carrying multiple mobile devices, e.g., “my Canadian cell phone,” “my French cell phone” or “my Swedish cell phone,” with each cell phone being used with an operator in the corresponding country. Of course, this jostling of several units is very burdensome on the user.
Another solution is to switch out the UICC. However, there are at least two problems with that particular solution. First, the user would have to remember to carry along multiple UICCs and to know which to use in each location. Second, there is a growing trend towards embedded UICCs. In a mobile device with an embedded UICC it is not possible, at least not at the user level, to readily access the UICC and replace it.
One existing alternative solution to the problem described above is known as the multi-IMSI application, in which an application inside the UICC can switch between different credentials, based on some external trigger. This alternative solution has two limitations:                The number of different credentials to be supported is limited by the memory of the UICC.        It is difficult to switch between entire profiles, mainly because of limitation of memory in the UICC. Therefore the multi-IMSI application only switches the credentials (keys and codes) and some selected data (e.g. the roaming files). The rest of the profile must be shared.        
In multi-IMSI applications, only some parameter values of a profile are switched with other values, e.g., IMSI and telephone number. However, there is not a switch of an entire profile.
One limitation, thus, of the multi-IMSI solution is that, because entire profiles are not switched, the two operators must have the same profile format in order to allow for a switch of profiles when switching from one operator to another. That is often not the case, and therefore the solution is often not a complete and dependable solution allowing for switching of profiles, for example while roaming.
There is a need for an improved method to provide the ability to provide multi-IMSI applications managed directly by a UICC or similar device.